Habitable Zones & Global Climate: August 2012

A new study, supported in part by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, suggests that meteorites and their parent asteroids are the most-likely sources of water on Earth. The research led by the Carnegie Institution for Science's Conel Alexander indicates that these rocks from space were the sources of early Earth's volatile elements -- which include hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon -- and possibly organic material. Understanding if and how volatile elements were delivered to the early Earth is important in determining the origins of both water and life on our planet. This work was partially funded by NASA Cosmochemistry, the NASA Astrobiology Institute, Carnegie Institution of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the W.M. Keck Foundation, and the UK Cosmochemical Analysis Network. [Source: NAI]